639 
D45 S8 
opy 1 



OBSERVATIONS 



BY AN OBSCURE MEDIOCRITY. ON A RECENTLY 
PUBLISHED BROCHURE ENTITLED 



"THE NEMESIS OF MEDIOCRITY 



OBSERVATIONS 

BY AN OBSCURE MEDIOCRITY, ON A RECENTLY 
PUBLISHED BROCHURE ENTITLED 

THE NEMESIS OF MEDIOCRITY 



^2JtftA>-ervva«^ ^^rj^-ijj^Oit. Via-u;\* 



OBSERVATIONS 



BY AN OBSCURE MEDIOCRITY. ON A RECENTLY 
PUBLISHED BROCHURE ENTITLED 



THE NEMESIS OF MEDIOCRITY '' 



GEORGE WAHR, Publisher 
Ann Arbor, Mich. 

1918 






COPYRIGHT, 1918 
GEORGE WAHR 





% 


0» 


THE ANN ARBOR PRESS 


©CI.Ar.(M 


i(i;r/ 


NOV 


l8iS 


18 



^ 

k 

I 



> 



TO THE INSTIGATOR 



OBSERVATIONS 

BY AN OBSCURE MEDIOCRITY, ON A RECENTLY 
PUBLISHED BROCHURE ENTITLED 

THE NEMESIS OF MEDIOCRITY 



September, 1918. 

A mirror has recently been held up before the 
world by a man of seemingly great intellectuality, 
who descants upon the ghastly sights he sees 
therein. 

The world is rapidly going to the demnition 
bow-wows! Culture and civilization are passing 
away! Society is sinking * 'under the nemesis of 
universal mediocrity!" **A11 mankind has been 
reduced to a *'dead level of incapacity!" 

"Inch by inch the [human] valleys are being 
filled and the mountains brought low!'* A *'reign 
of mediocrity" has been established! Meanwhile 
"the sands slide under our feet, and we touch 
nothing tangible as we reach out for support in a 
darkness that shows no sign of breaking!" 

[7] 



"The thing we have so earnestly and arduously 
built up out of Renaissance, Reformation and 
Revolution' with industrialism and scientific de- 
terminism as the structural material, is not a civil- 
ization at all, and it must be destroyed in order 
that the ground may be cleared for something 
better"! Over in France and Italy, the nations 
"are blindly and half unconsciously fighting for 
the last shreds of honour and liberty left over from 
an old Christian civilization!" 

The disconsolate lecturer who makes this 
mournful outcry, says that our system of popular 
education is "probably the worst ever devised so 
far as character making is concerned!" It has 
"failed to produce appreciable results!" It has 
"left native character untouched!" It has helped 
to bring on "the reign of mediocrity!" It is 
"prowling through the ruins of scientific determin- 
ism, and struggling ever to build out of its shreds 
and shards some new machine that will make 
even more certain the direct application of schol- 
astic results to the one problem of wealth produc- 
tion!" 

^A new trio of R's, used twice in The Nemesis and 
hereafter to be as famous, perhaps, as Brother Burch- 
ard's in 1 884. 

[S] 



To the eyes of this distressed intellectual 
gentleman, the mirror discloses most heartrending 
sights resulting from immigration without limit 
and from "unrestrained mating amongst men and 
women of alien racial qualities, — "the free and 
reckless mixing of incompatible strains." He sees 
"the substitution of the mongrel for the product of 
pure blood!" He sees that in large sections of 
America, society "is now completely mongrel!" 
He sees that if continued for another generation 
or two, "the result can only be universal mon- 
grelism and the consequent end of culture and 
civilization!" He sees that the result of "cross- 
fertilization" is either "a hybrid without power 
of propagation, or a precarious phenomenon tend- 
ing inevitably towards a retrogression that in a 
few generations comes back to the normal type!" 
He moans that "there is no tragedy greater than 
that of the human soul full of the promise and 
potency and desire of good things, imprisoned in 
the forbidding circle of mongrel blood, inimical 
inheritance and pernicious environment against 
which it desperately rebels, but from which there 
is no possibility of escape except through the pow- 
er of supernatural assistance on which it no long- 
er possesses the impulse or the will to call!" (A 
most sadly beautiful example of soulful, aesthetic 
and classical pathos, is it not!) 

[9] 



He sees that religion is **now impotent amongst 
the nations," that it has disappeared "as a vital 
force in human Hfe and society;" that ever since 
the Reformation, rehgion *'has gone back to the 
catacombs whence Constantine had drawn it fif- 
teen centuries ago;" has been '*only a dissolving 
tradition, without any real force or potency in and 
over society" and that its disappearance as such a 
vital force has helped to fix '*the manacles of cap- 
italism and industrial slavery on the world!" 

He sees philosophy "still clinging to the 
shreds and tatters of evolution or remodeling it- 
self on the plausible lines of an intellectualized 
materialism!" 

He sees in the mirror many other shocking 
and ghastly sights and horrors, that we have not 
space to describe." 



The trouble is not due to the War. That has 
simply helped to reveal the dire conditions. The 
War's revelations "have cast a searching and 
mordant light" on what we may call the left- 

*For Heaven's sake, let's sit upon the ground 
And tell sad stories about everything; 
And see which one amongst us shall weep first; 
And from the tangled skein of circumstance 
Let's weave a web of dreariest argument. 
And make us comfortably miserable. (Anon.) 

[10] 



overs of the nineteenth century, and have shown 
how many counterfeits and thin dogmas there 
were among them, and have enabled the profess- 
or, we understand, to discover the *'cataclyism 
that has occurred." 

The trouble is all due to the loss of leader- 
ship y — leadership "that matches in power the ex- 
igency of the demand!" (The lecturer uses no 
common speech, as already seen). "Of all the 
ruined sanctuaries, that of statemanship is the 
most desolate," — but it is almost as bad in the 
field of war, religion, philosophy, literature, art 
and education ! Not only our own beloved coun- 
try, but also England, France and Italy, indeed, 
all countries, (for the lecturer is not provincial) 
are totally lacking "guides, interpreters, leaders," 
— "seers, prophets, captains of men," — "states- 
men, philosophers, artists, religious prophets and 
shepherds," — such as are demanded by the 
times!' 

"The day of great leaders has passed!" 
"There is none to answer, "m anp category^ of 
life, issuing out of any nation!'^ Meanwhile, 
"the hungry sheep look up and are not fed!" 

^But do not carry the idea too far, — for "great lead- 
ers could not have averted the war," a comforting line 
on p. 45. 

[11] 



Indeed, great leaders "are no longer wanted 
or brought into existence!"^ 



To express the idea that the masses, realiz- 
ing their own incapacity, naturally look for a 
genuine leader, our literary virtuoso presents this 
symphonic gem: 

"Now as always the great masses of men 
look for the master-man who can form in definite 
shape the aspirations and the instincts that in 
them are formless and amorphous; who can lead 
where they are more than willing to follow, but 
themselves cannot mark the way; who can act 
as a centripetal force and gather into potent units 
the diffuse atoms of like will but without coordin- 
ating ability." 

But not finding the genuine, they take a coun- 
terfeit, as he shows in the lofty style : 

"So great is this central human instinct (which 

*Yet, paradoxical as it may seem, "the soul of sane 
man demands leadership" and today as never before, 
*'men cry aloud" for leadership. And paradoxically, 
also, leadership "has not been lost but only changed in 
direction", — to business pursuits. "The point is, how- 
ever, that leadership, while it may conceivably supple- 
ment that of an earlier day in other fields, may, under no 
circumstances whatever be assumed to serve as a sub- 
stitute'', pp 2, 31, 46. 

[12] 



was not only the foundation of feudalism but 
harks back to the very beginnings of society), 
that when the great leader is not revealed he is 
invented out of the more impudent element of any 
potential group, assurance taking the place of 
competence [Let us remember these words] ; or 
optimistically assumed, the most available being 
dragged from his obscurity and pitched into a 
position, or burdened with a task, outside the 
limits of his ability — as he himself only too often 
knows!'* 

And the counterfeits do their best to look like 
the genuine, as he declaims, thusly : 

"Arduously they struggle to build up a fol- 
lowing, to see the insane life of the moment and 
see it whole; to keep ahead of the whirlwind of 
hell-let-loose and direct an amazed and disorder- 
ed society along paths of ultimate safety. And 
always the event outdistances them, the phantas- 
magoria of chaos whirls bewilderingly beyond, 
and either they follow helplessly or are sucked 
into the rushing vacuum that comes in the wake 
of progressive destruction!" 

Concerning these counterfeits collectively, the 
lecturer describes them further as "the specious 
demagogue, the unscrupulous master of effront- 

[13] 



ery*' — "pitchforked into pre-eminence, * * * de- 
graded and debased by dullness, obliquity of vis- 
ion and crude incompetence" — * 'pitched neck- 
and-crop into big places" — "the synthetic pro- 
duct of a mechanical process of self-expression 
on the part of groups of men without leaders, but 
who must have them and so make shift to precip- 
itate them in material form out of the undiffer- 
entiated mass of their common inclinations, pass- 
ions and prejudices!" 

Religion, he says, is **no longer marked by 
the dominance" of what we may call the old 
time saints or the medieval celebrities, "but rather 
by the uncouth flotsam' of the intellectual under- 
world or the obscurantist faquirs^ of a decadent 
Orientalism!" (Oh, joy, let us remember this 
when we meet our Domine next time. ) 

Philosophy is no longer controlled in its des- 

From the Dictionary: Flotsam, goods lost by ship- 
wreck and floating on the sea, in distinction from jet- 
sam. Jetsam, — goods which sink when cast into the 
sea, and remain under water. Jejune, — devoid of life, 
point or interest, dry; wanting in substance, empty, 
meager, bare. Faquirs, — same as fakir. Fakir, — a 
Mohammedan ascetic, religious mendicant or mendicant 
priest. Obscurantist, — from obscurantism, the principles 
and spirit that tend to prevent enlightment and the pro- 
gress of science. 

[14] 



tinies by the Plato-Spencer type, but by "semi- 
converted novelists, jejune^ instructors in psychol- 
ogy, and imperfectly developed but sufficiently 
voluble journalists!" 

It will be seen from these typical excerpts 
that the lecturer is also "sufficiently voluble," that 
Susannah's trouble is not his. 

"Two adjectives Susannah knows; 
On these she takes her stand. 
No matter how this old world goes. 
It's either fierce or grand.'' 



We are told the exact year since which this 
dearth of leaders has existed. It is the year 1905. 
Up to that fateful year things were going pretty 
well, it seems, in this particular respect. 

The lecturer has himself made a catalogue 
of all the great leaders of the world who were 
living in 1880. There was a confusing "ple- 
thora of options" in those days. There were 
sixt]^ of them who "would be accepted by all as 
leaders of men". He could add another hundred 
"of only a little less eminence" but that might 

[15] 



raise a dispute/ *'A II these hundred and sixty 'im- 
mortals' had died before 1905!" 

The allusion is to **those astonishing years" 
from 1880 to 1905, *'a generation that lacks 
nothing in leadership*'/ If the "arbitrary quarter 
century" chosen by the lecturer could be ex- 
tended to cover the period from 1870 to 1910, 
he could increase the count of great names **to 
two hundred", and the lecturer challenges anyone 
"to fill a tenth of the places they (the 160) left 
vacant, with the names, unknown in 1 880, of men 
whose claim can be unquestioned."^ 

The idea will come to the mind of more than 
one mediocre person that possibly the lecturer, 

"p- 9. On p. 21, it seems, the number falls to "one 
hundred and fifty." (Doubtless a printer's error.) 

'p. 1 0. But paradoxically again, "the last quarter 
of the nineteenth century", — "was not an epoch to 
which future generations will look back with any notable 
degree of pride; yet it left us a heritage of great names" 
which "reached the number of one hundred and fifty", 
— a "century and a half of names", as he says. (pp. 
21,10). 

This challenge is not as clear in meaning to a medi- 
ocrity as we would expect from an "intellectual." Why 
"unknown in 1880"? "Unknown" to whom? "Un- 
questioned" by whom? But possibly we may summon 
sufficient courage ere we end, to meet the challenge, tak- 
ing a chance on a sportsmanlike interpretation of it. 

[16] 



with all his erudition, cannot estimate the great- 
ness of the present generation of men as well as 
some future intellectual noble, looking backward, 
may be able to do, — that oft-times a prophet is 
not without honor except in his own country and 
in his own time, — that contemporaries of great 
men have sometimes but not always been un- 
animous in putting them on the list, while later 
generations only have been able to see the full 
richness of their worth. But the lecturer has not 
overlooked the argument. It "has no validity.*' 
He can remember he worshipped some of those 
160 men on his 1880-1905 list, and he knows 
they were unquestioned leaders. Besides, ''lead- 
ership is not posthumous." The idea is therefore 
overruled. (However, there remains a lingering 
feeling that the full acknoivledgement of leader- 
ship is many times posthumous.) 

How much the world would like to see this 
wiseacre's complete catalogue of 160, comprising 
the 1880-1905 leaders, he did not realize. It 
might enable the contemporary world more clear- 
ly to have its day in court, as it were, — to deter- 
mine whether his ideas of the characteristics and 
qualifications of a great leader are in harmony 
with its own, or whether he is human and judges 
from his own standpoint and is influenced by his 

[17] 



politics, prejudices, inclinations and specialties, as 
some of the rest of us are. Possibly he is here 
lost in his intellectuality. Possibly a star has 
warped out of its orbit. Perhaps the listing of 
great leaders is outside the lecturer's sphere. Let 
us see how he defines the leadership "that matches 
in power the exigency of the demand." We think 
his definition is found on page 6 of The Nemesis, 
previously quoted but so delicious as to bear rep- 
etition: ^ * * "the master man who can form 
in definite shape the aspirations and the instincts 
that in them [the great mass of men] are formless 
and amorphous; who can lead where they are 
more than willing to follow, but themselves can- 
not mark the way; who can act as a centripetal 
force and gather into potent units the diffuse atoms 
of like will but without co-ordinating ability!" 

Lest, however, this brilliant display should 
dazzle plain people, some of the "uncouth flot- 
sam of the intellectual underworld," let us look 
further for a softer light; in fragments, it may be 
found: "* * * leaders of an intellectual or moral 
capacity above that of the general mass of voters" 
— "the strong man, strong of mind, of will, of 
moral sense, the man born to create and to lead." 
The needed qualities include, we gather, great- 
ness, quality, capacity and dominance equal to 

[18] 



those of the leaders of former times, — especially 
between 1880-1905. If a candidate for the list 
finds his following "through [their?] comprehen- 
sion of his own force and dominance," — it is a 
point in his favor. If, however, he finds it ''faute 
de mieux^ and because there are no others to 
lead,*' then he is a counterfeit. If he is like 
the 1880-1905 type, *'who first saw beyond the 
obvious and drew others after him by force of 
vision and will and personal quality," then he gets 
honorable mention, at least. (A rather ill-mark- 
ed yard-stick, on the whole, we think.) 

The practical application of the lecturer's 
rules for locating great leaders, appears to a lim- 
ited extent from his published list of eighteen 
names, forming a part of the otherwise unpublish- 
ed 1880-1905 catalogue of 160, which eighteen 
names we state in the order of the year of death : 

Cavour, died 1861, and therefore included 
through oversight, of course. 

Carlyle and DisraeH, died 1881 ; 

Darwin, Emerson and Wagner, died 1882; 

Tourguenieff, Russian novelist, and Karl 
Marx, German socialist, died 1883; 

Matthew Arnold, critic, poet, essayist, died 
1888; 

Browning, died 1889; 

[19] 



Cardinal Newman, died 1890; 

Von Molkte, died 1891; 

Stevenson, writer of fiction, essays and poems, 
died 1894; 

William Morris, poet and artist, died 1896; 

Bismarck, died 1898; 

Ruskin, art critic, author, social reformer, died 
1900; 

Spencer, philosopher, and Leo XIII, died 
1903. 

With the possible exception of one, we ob- 
serve, all were * 'intellectuals;" and the query 
arises, would the lecturer know a great leader, if 
he saw one in the mirror, unless the person hap- 
pened to be also an ''intellectual?" And this 
query suggests many others. Must one be an 
"intellectual" in order to be a great leader? 
How many portions of intellectuality must he 
have before he may be considered for the list? 
Must he know Greek and Latin at all, or even 
a second modern language? Must he be versed 
in ancient, medieval and modern literature, or 
even in the literature of any one period? Must 
he know the history of architecture or art in 
any form? Must he be "learned" in any direc- 
tion? Is there a chance that any one who falls 
under the awful ban, "the uncouth flotsam of the 

[20] 



intellectual underworld," may be put upon the 
list? When we mediocrities assume, from our 
puny platforms, to make a list of great leaders, 
may not great achievement in ameliorating the 
condition of mankind, in places to which men 
may be assigned for long or short periods, by the 
choice of the people or by force of circumstances, 
take the place of intellectuality? Does not each 
decade produce its own types of great leaders, 
or must the candidates of all decades be measured 
by the same yard-stick? Is this a decade for a 
Darwin, a Wagner, a Browning, a Spencer, or 
an Emerson? Is it not rather a decade for a 
Hill, an Edison, a Marconi, a Ford, a Mott, a 
Hoover? Must leaders, to be great, be univer- 
sally admired and recognized by their contem- 
poraries? (Roosevelt, for example.) Is it not 
true that the question who is a great leader, is 
often one of personal opinion, — on the principle 
that orthodoxy is my doxy and heterodoxy is your 
doxy, — or is it determined by rules promulgated 
by the **intellectuals?" If a certain decade, — our 
own, say, — produces leaders *'that match in 
power the exigency of the demand'* of the par- 
ticular decade, how is any one to say, even an 
"intellectual," as this particular one does, that 
such leaders *'may conceivably supplement" but 
"may, under no circumstances whatever, be as- 

[21] 



sumed to serve as a substitute'* for those on the 
1880-1905 Hst? 

It is to be observed that these are not asser- 
tions but merely queries of a mediocrity. 

Let us now call the roll of contemporaries 
posing as statesmen, for example, who were living 
in 1880 and who did not die before 1905, and 
whom the learned lecturer dignifies by mention in 
The Nemesis. 

Asquith: A **somewhat sinuous and agile 
mediocrity," says the lecturer, — rather flippantly, 
it seems to us, but perhaps we are unfair in this. 

Lloyd George: "Does not fill the bill,'* says 
the lecturer, — dreadfully unclassical, heretofore, 
but we understand the meaning, — "another small 
man, essentially a middle-class demagogue of the 
first decade of the century, who has also been 
fortified and chastened by the compelling force of 
anomalous circumstances.*' (A sort of back- 
handed compliment, is it not?) 

Churchill: "Still bending under the weight 
of tragic fiasco." (Disclosure by Ambassador 
Morgenthau too late to save Churchill.) 

Clemenceau: "The superannuated." 

Ribot: "Venerable, but neither stimulating 
or convincing." 

[22] 



Painleve: **CoIorIess/' (We must excuse 
these monosyllabic dispositions. Our lecturer's 
time is short and he is dealing not alone with the 
whole world of statecraft but also the worlds 
of war, religion, philosophy, literature, art, and 
education. ) 

Italian statesmen: Have recently been mere 
* political hucksters and demagogues," — none 
**of even moderate distinction." 

So passes away earthly glory in other lands. 

And in America? Surely something promis- 
ing will now be found in the thesis. 

Roosevelt: A doubtful compliment in sixty 
words: He "strove for a renewal of that popular 
confidence and to restore that popular following 
he so eminently deserved, and failed, though in 
this failure was less of discredit to him than to a 
public somewhat defective in its powers of per- 
ception and in its standard of comparative 
values." (This leaves us mediocrities somewhat 
in the dark, — some of us who would have been 
pleased to have had our belief that he is a great 
leader confirmed by a competent authority on the 
subject.) 

Taft, Root, Hughes, McCall: Not men- 
tioned. ( Republicans ) . 

[23] 



Lodge, Borah and Williams: "Reliable 
honesty and ability," — "conspicuous figures,*' — 
honorable mention, as it were. 

The Nemesis list of American statecraft con- 
temporaries who did not die before 1905, in ad- 
dition to those mentioned, and one other, contains^ 
only the names of Colonel House, — "the myster- 
ious and promising figure," — thanks for this ray 
of hope, — Stone, Cummings, Gronna, Clark, 
Vardaman and LaFollette, termed "ominous 
figures." (No quarrel over this last classifica- 
tion. ) 

WILSON: Is he a leader "that matches 
in power the exigency of the demand?" A Dem- 
ocrat, — a statesman, — a writer, — and an intel- 
lectual nobleman, able to write in the grand and 
classic style when he pleases (which, thank God, 
is not often). "I recognize in him one possible 
exception, if there be one, that proves my rule; 
but I must be moderate in my rating of him, lest 
I raise too great hopes; mine is not a message of 
hope," — says our lecturer, in effect. 

"The most august figure of all?" (Note the 
interrogation point). "Here, if anyivhere today, 
is revealed the argument against the thesis I ad- 
duce — perhaps as the exception that proves the 

[24] 



rule ; * * * astute politician, * * * the acceptable 
type of leader (for three years) who does not 
lead but obediently follows on where the major- 
ity-will indicates the way.'* Then this changed 
and **as the inclusive incapacity of the democratic 
method revealed itself, it was relegated to the 
background while a very real and equally con- 
structive leadership took its place"; * * * novel 
and reassuring leadership * * * single leadership 
* * * real leadership, of the old and almost for- 
gotten type," — 1880-1905, we understand, — **a 
daring and therefore true leadership prefigured 
by some of the finest verbal pronouncements of 
high principle the Republic has thus far heard." 
(Followed by a good cuff for his "p^^^^ with- 
out victory" utterance and other disapproved pre- 
war sayings). ''Does this mean,'* continues the 
lecturer, '*that from now on the course followed 
will be increasingly exalted, high-spirited and 
courageous"? (Note again the interrogation 
mark.) **It may well be; if so, and to that ex- 
tent, the present lack of world-leadership will be 
corrected". 

The Lord be praised for this one if-so-and-to- 
that-extent-perhaps- possible exception, even if it 
does prove the rule! There is still, then, at least 
one ray of hope for this part of the world; but it 
is clouded to our eyes by the fear that but for 

[25] 



those * 'finest verbal pronouncements" there might 
not have been found any proof of the rule. May 
Wilson have long life ! 



And now we come to the major proposition of 
the entire thesis. What is the cause of this loss 
of leadership? '*To what are we to attribute this 
anomalous condition?" *'We [in the general 
sense] reach out blindly for some explanation of 
the cataclysm that has occurred.*' But the lec- 
turer has a special lamp that has penetrated the 
darkness, enabling him to be very positive. 

*'The answer is simple," says he. IT IS DEM- 
OCRACY. Not the democracy **of ideal," but 
democracy **in the current sense;" not the dem- 
ocracy which, **in its protean forms" seeks to at- 
tain abolition of privilege, equal opportunity for 
all and utilization of ability, but the democracy 
"of method," — the kind of democracy we have 
had for a long time and have now, the existing 
democrac}^. It is concerning the existing dem- 
ocracy that the lecturer is speaking, in the lines 
to be referred to below. 

We hesitate to circulate the doleful news; 
but here it is : 

Democracy has suffered a period ("for ex- 
actly one hundred years") of "progressive degen- 

[26] 



eration!" It "is incapable of accomplishing the 
democratic ideal!" It is a case of "the political 
survival of the unfit!'* "The system has doomed 
itself, since, impotent to produce leaders, it has 
signed its own death warrant!'* It has "elimin- 
ated sane, potent and constructive leadership!" 
It is democracy that has produced the "universal 
mediocrity," that has reduced all mankind to "a 
dead level of incapacity!" Society has been 
wholly democratized, "not by filling in the valleys 
and lifting the malarial swamps of the submerged 
masses, but by a leveling of all down to their 
plane!" The "almost sublime incapacity" of 
democracy in all matters where it has had a part, 
has been revealed during the Great War ! "The 
War reveals us as a helpless, inefficient people!" 
For two generations before the Great War, 
democracy had been "corrupt, incompetent and 
ridiculous!" In the year before the War, in the 
three great democracies. Great Britain, France 
and the United States, it was "profoundly cursed 
by the incubus of little men in great office, by 
chaotic, selfish and unintelligent legislation, dull, 
stupid and frequently venal administration, and 
by partial, unscrupulous and pettifogging judicial 
procedure!" And when the Great War began, 
there was an "apotheosis of inefficiency, injus- 
tice and unrighteousness!" "Military, political 

[27] 



and psychological blunders have followed each 
other in a witch's sabbath of incapacity!" 

Democracy *'is now not a blessing but a men- 
ace!" The only thing that has saved the Allies 
from disaster, has been the elimination of dem- 
ocracy and the substitution of "a pure and per- 
fectly irresponsible absolutism T . (Wilson 
among others, we think, is here meant). **Bar- 
ring the miracle of redemption through bitter chas- 
tisement'*, we are "hurrying on to anarchy or 
slavery as the fortunes of war may determine !"^^ 
Indeed, democracy without the big leaders be- 
fore referred to, — and their day is past, — "rs a 
greater menace than autocracy' (//) 



Our lecturer has made a second list, — a list 
of "mechanical toys" insanely devised, as he 
says, during the last hundred years (despite those 
old times great leaders?) for the achieving of the 
democracy of ideal, namely: "representative gov- 
ernment, — the parliamentary system, — universal 
suffrage, — the party system, — the secret ballot, — 
rotation in office, — the initiative, referendum 
and recall, — popular election of members of the 

"On the present war news, our bet is anarchy, if 
either. 

[28] 



upper legislative houses, — woman suffrage,- 
rect legislation." 

These "toys" have made things worse. "Gov- 
ernment and society have become progressively 
more venal, less competent and further separated 
from the ideals of honour, duty and righteous- 
ness!" Meanwhile new "nostrums" are being 
searched for, and "we have now wholly forgot- 
ten in what democracy consists!" 

After peace comes again, — if it ever does, — 
its return "will be for the briefest of periods," to 
be followed by a "second world-wide convulsion, 
the war for the revolutionizing of society, — etc., 
etc., etc. 



Any ray of hope? Scarcely. It may possi- 
bly come by "a miracle of redemption through 
bitter chastisement!" Of course, miracles are 
decidedly rare. There is a suggestion that if 
Prussian autocractic efficiency can be shattered, 
the world may be saved "from a fate it richly de- 
serves." But even then can we say that we have 
a "better hope?" Yes, — if there come either a 
"spiritual regeneration of the great mass of the 
people" so that they also "gain a victory over 
the enemy at home in religion, philosophy and so- 

[29] 



ciety, purging a chastened world of the last folly 
and the last wickedness of modernism" (a rather 
vague purging prescription, it seems to us) or, as a 
substitute, if there come once more such big lead- 
ers as we had before 1905. 

But if neither of those two things happen, and 
if the world returns to the present style of dem- 
ocracy, — then what? ''Russia has already given 
the ansiper," says the lecturer, dramatically. 



Whose rvail is this? From what quarter 
comes this uniimel]^ pessimistic indiscretion, this 
monstrous display of presumption, this pronounc- 
ed example of **assurance taking the place of com- 
petence?" Whose opinion and belief besides the 
writer's does it express? Are "intellectuals" gen- 
erally in sympathy with its utterances? Have 
any of the class repudiated them? Who, then, 
is back of them? Are they an example of the 
subtle work of the German propaganda bureau? 
What better propaganda could the Kaiser and 
his band of autocrats have distributed among 
their millions of enemies? How quite in harmony 
it is with the definition of democracy by a Ger- 
man scholar, who said, — "Democracy is a 
thingy infirm of purpose, jealous, timid, change- 

[30] 



able, unthorough, without foresight, blundering 
along in an age of lucidity, by confused instincts!" 
// taken seriously, what propaganda could weak- 
en so much the ardor of the people who are con- 
tributing their time, their fortunes and their blood 
to the present world struggle? How weak and 
harmless, when compared to the deliberately writ- 
ten and widely published Nemesis, — which has 
already had two editions, — are the more or less 
casual utterances on the street, to a few, which in 
these days have sent men to internment camps or to 
jails ! If some poor unintellectual devil, brought up 
perhaps in anarchistic surroundings and therefore 
in a degree excusable, should in these days gather 
ten men about him and utter in common speech 
the thoughts about democracy expressed in The 
Nemesis, how long would he retain his liberty ? 

The Nemesis comes out of Boston, the hub 
of intellectuality, — and of provincialism. How- 
ever pleased the friends of the Kaiser might be 
to have the ideas given wide circulation, they had 
no part, we may be sure, in its preparation. It ii 
the work of RALPH ADAMS CRAM, builder of 
Gothic churches, professor of architecture in the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with an 
honorary Litt.D from Princeton and an honorary 
[31] 



LL.D. from Yale, author of books, a "learned" 
man, and a loyal citizen, — who doesn't speak well 
of the Germans either. 

We mediocrities do not under-estimate the im- 
portance and the practical value of intellectuality. 
It would be a distinct loss to the world if the high- 
est and best type of intellectuality should be lost. 
Those possessing it play an important part in the 
world's development, — but more often when they 
are following the old maxim about the cobbler 
and his last. We see great value in their books, 
but more especially when they stick to the sub- 
jects in which their life work has made them 
learned. When they translate and elucidate an- 
cient writings, we applaud their results. When 
they design Gothic churches, we admire them. 
But we do not go to them with great confidence 
for advice as to how to vote, or how to invest our 
money, or how to judge the capacity of our con- 
temporaries, or how to rate well-known charact- 
ers in contemporary history. In other words, we 
**jes nachelly" put a limit on their ability to draw 
right conclusions and to advise outside their par- 
ticular lines of activity; for, alas, they are too 
often provincial, giving vastly undue importance 
to their ideas and conclusions about matters out- 
side their small circle or sphere. 

[32] 



"One science only will one genius fit. 
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.** 

And if we felt that the world of democracy 
needed a warning on the subjects dealt with in 
The Nemesis, we would not have it come dressed 
up in stilted intellectual verbiage/^ Some writers 
seem to have a fear that their readers will not be 
sufficiently impressed with their intellectuality. 
If, in order to bring about "a spiritual regenera- 
tion of the great mass of people** (one alternative 
for saving us from perdition,) we need to warn 
**the great mass of people" of the cataclysm 
which Dr. Cram has discovered, let us get a 
Dooley or a baseball reporter, or at least a simpler 
"intellectual** (making sure we do not pick from 
"the more impudent element of any potential 
group**) to help in the task, for the benefit of 
the plain people, the mediocrities, the "uncouth 
flotsam of the intellectual underworld,** — who 
collectively do great things sometimes, when told 
of the need for them. If the situation is as de- 

^^Not long ago one of the * 'intellectuals", writing 
in the New York Times, bemoaned the fact that they 
had not warned the world of the coming Great War. 
An irreverent paragrapher remarked that they had given 
the warning but because it was they who had given it, 
the world paid no attention. 

[33] 



picted by Dr. Cram, let us tell the story to them 
under a simple title that does not repel, and tell 
it simply "as to a little child," and let us not say 
too much. There is an adage, — he who proves 
too much proves nothing. 

The great leaders of the past, — have they 
sprung mostly from the intellectual nobility? It 
is our recollection that most of them had a more 
humble origin. This lamentation, this dire warn- 
ing of impending calamity must not be brought 
to the attention of the intellectual nobility only, — 
if it is a serious matter; for it is not impossible 
that, with wide circulation among "the great mass 
of people," before it is too late there may spring 
up — even from "the submerged masses" or from 
the despised "uncouth flotsam of the intellectual 
underworld" — great leaders, equal to those who 
died before 1905. 



But we do not understand that Dr. Cram has 
any private sources of information. He is mere- 
ly expressing his opinion. Let us not be unduly 
alarmed. Perhaps he is wrong. Before giving 
up the fight "over there" for democracy, before 
adopting autocracy or socialism or whatever it 
is that Dr. Cram believes in, let us get the opinion 
of other "intellectuals" who wear stronger human 
spectacles and have a wider horizon; who live 

[34] 



more in the present and less in the Middle Ages, 
— **when the ideal of democracy was at its high- 
est point and when it was most nearly achieved/* 
as the Doctor thinks ; who have come into more in- 
timate contact with the plain people; who, for ex- 
ample, have passed beyond the line **where the 
West begins," not merely in a Pullman car on the 
California or the Overland Limited on the way 
to Santa Barbara or Coronado Beach; but who 
have seen, close at hand, examples of the pre- 
vailing type of men and women who are the pro- 
duct of the **unrestrained mating amongst men 
and women of alien racial qualities," the "mon- 
grels" to whom Dr. Cram scornfully refers, — 
splendid Americans, industrious, thrifty, honest, 
capable, healthy, patriotic to a high degree, as 
shown by actions, contributing mightly to the up- 
building of the vast territorial empires beyond the 
Mississippi river/"" Such ^'intellectuals" may have 
a better opinion of the mongrel attainments and 
more hope of our ultimate regeneration. Perhaps 
the Doctor does not voice the sentiments of "in- 
tellectuals" generally. Possibly some, of them 
may let us know the fact and cheer us with con- 
trary expounding. 

^^It might be said that they are full-blooded mon- 
grels ! 

[35] 



Of course, we cannot see the cracks and crev- 
ices, the 'Vashes," the snares and other pitfalls 
on the deserts of democracy, as well as he who is 
at a higher altitude. Nevertheless, within the short 
additional space that may possibly be taken with- 
out impropriety by a mediocrity, with all humility 
and with as bright eyes and as cheerful hearts as 
we possess, after so gloomy a portrayal of 
our condition and our fate, — let us consider the 
situation from our relatively low viewpoint. 

We see the human plain inhabited by a peo- 
ple who are now as never before experiencing 
abolition of privilege, equal opportunity for all 
and utilization of ability, — the conditions which 
democracy "in its protean forms" seeks to attain. 
We think that the human mountains having **inch 
by inch" been "brought low" and the human val- 
leys having likewise been "filled" as the Doctor 
says, the common level of humanity must neces- 
sarily be considerably higher, and "the malarial 
swamps of the submerged masses" must have been 
at least partially obliterated. This seems to fol- 
low as an engineering and a philosophical neces- 
sity. The filling of figurative and other swamps 
has been going on in this country quite steadily 
for some time, it seems to us. 

We have faith in democracy, — greater faith 
than ever before; we have joy in the demonstra- 

[36] 



tion of its power; we believe its future is to be 
glorious, as its past has been, in achievements for 
the amelioration of the conditions of mankind. 
Where Dr. Cram seems to see the "elimination" 
of democracy and the substitution of '*a pure and 
perfectly irresponsible absolutism" in the quiet and 
cheerful submission of the people to the regula- 
tions of the administration in respect of food, fuel, 
industrial life, the public press and other affairs, 
— rve see further evidence of the strength of dem- 
ocracy, proof of its adaptability to the stress of 
war, proof of a lofty spirit controlling the people. 
It is hard for us to believe that there is living 
in these stirring days any man of a high order 
of intelligence, whose soul is so soured that he is 
not thrilled by the gratifying and wonderful re- 
sponse of the great democracies of the world to 
the challenge of autocracy; who does not find 
pride and joy in the alacrity, the courage, the 
practical unanimity, the determination, the grow- 
ing efficiency, with which all classes of the peo- 
ple, — the rich, the poor, the high, the low, the 
"mongrels** and the "flotsam**, — have come for- 
ward and entered upon their several war tasks, — 
wives and daughters leaving luxurious homes and 
with all their souls and talents and endurance 
engaging in the drudgery of Red Cross hospitals 
and canteens in France and Italy; those who re- 

[37] 



main at home devoting themselves w^ith daily 
earnestness to war service; labor putting new^ em- 
phasis upon its war efforts; capital subordinating 
itself to the great object; manhood meeting cheer- 
fully the call to arms and to service; and the dis- 
tinction of classes being rapidly eliminated. 

It is hard for us to believe that in such a time 
as this an "intellectual" can bring himself to the 
point of publishing a disheartening message to 
people so engaged/" The bad effect of it, — if 
it has any effect, — can be seen by any one. Com- 
mon sense is not yet an amorphous virtue. 

We think the world may get along quite well 
even though it may not be able to put its finger 
on a universally recognized *'great leader'* in lit- 
erature, art, philosophy and in each of the other 
great activities of the day. Perhaps in some de- 
cades, in some activities, the multiplicity of men 
**of only a little less eminence," or even consid- 
erably less, may neutralize the absence of univer- 

^^In all the 52 pages of The Nemesis there is not a 
complimentary word said of any nation or class or in- 
dividual engaged in the fight over there! The first edi- 
tion of The Nemesis came out in December, 1917, 
shortly after the Italian retreat to the Piave. The sec- 
ond edition was offered in May, 1918, when the hearts 
of the Allied nations were suffering as a result of the 
German advance into France. What a cheering mes- 
sage to give out, was The Nemesis, at those times ! 

[ 38 ] 



sally recognized great leaders. Perhaps, as be- 
fore hinted, they exist but are not yet generally 
known as such, — at least to Dr. Cram. 

With these thoughts in mind, let us meet the 
Doctor's challenge before mentioned, — a pre- 
sumption on the part of this mediocrity almost 
equaling that of the Doctor. 

Is it true that before 1905, all of the great 
leaders died; that "under no circumstances what- 
ever" may the leadership that has come since that 
eventful year, "be assumed to serve as a substi- 
tute?" 

Comparisons are as odious as ever, in all 
fields; but they have been made in The Nemesis 
on a wholesale plan. 

In the field of war. Von Molkte, the Prussian, 
is named among the immortal eighteen, — Von 
Molkte, whose victories were in a six weeks war 
with the moribund Austrian monarchy and in a 
six months war with France after a reign of 
twenty years by the autocratic Emperor, Napol- 
eon III. Let us timidly suggest as a "substitute" 
a Frenchman by the name of FOCH, the pro- 
duct of fifty years of democracy in France. And 
there are several others. 

In the ecclesiastic field. Pope Leo XIII and 
Cardinal Newman are named among the eighteen. 

[39] 



We are not versed in ecclesiasticism, but there is 
a CARDINAL MERCIER, whom the lecturer re- 
fers to "as one man at least who measures up 
to the great controlling and directing agencies" of 
the period from 1880 to 1905 on which the lec- 
turer is so solidly set. Why then not say in plain 
words that this surpassingly great and brave ex- 
ample of devotion to principle and humanitarian- 
ism, who has made his name truly immortal, re- 
sults in at least two exceptions to the Cram rule? 
What qualities are lacking to bar the Cardinal of 
Malines from the list? And among clericals of 
great power and of wide influence, to be men- 
tioned, even if their eminence be somewhat less, 
there was, long after 1905, an ARCHBISHOP IRE- 
LAND, and there is a JOWETT in London and a 
JEFFERSON in New York and a ROBERT FREE- 
MAN in the West. 

Neither are we versed in the field of philos- 
ophy; indeed we sometimes think, with great re- 
spect for the "friends of wisdom," that the best 
philosophers are often men who never heard of 
Kant or Hegel, who never read a book dealing 
with the subject, but are nevertheless great phil- 
osophers, because, like JAMES J. HILL, they 
intuitively find the truth and the explanation, and 
read and expound the signs of the times, fore- 

[40] 



seeing the trend of human events. When James 
J. Hill spoke to the people, they listened. Such 
a philosopher, when he has character and com- 
mon sense and broad contact with humanity is 
worth to the world a thousand of the philosophers 
of the cloister or the den. Before being alarmed 
over a dearth of present day expert philosophers, 
—if there be one,— we would want to hear just 
what expert philosophers of the past have done, 
not merely to brighten the firesides of the *'intel- 
lectuals", but to help redeem the world. Would 
not philosophy be classed these days as a non-es- 
sential industry? 

In the field of art we are also deficient; but 
we know of a SARGENT and a RODIN and a 
LORADO TAFT and others, and we are told that 
CLAUDE MONET is a great leader, that he 
has revolutionized landscape painting, establish- 
ed a new school of art, and that his influence is 
felt, consciously or unconsciously, by every liv- 
ing cultured person. In architecture, may we not 
set down as a great leader, nolens volens, 
RALPH ADAMS CRAM, big enough in that speci- 
alty to have produced authoritative books and to 
be selected to pursue the construction of the 
Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York? 

[41] 



In the field of literature: No one belittles 
the immortal Stevenson, nor Tourguenieff, but 
there is a KIPLING and a WELLS. No one under- 
estimates that other immortal. Browning (no one 
who knows him) but there are the works of 
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY, which have reached 
ten thousand times as many firesides, and have 
won as many times more hearts, and have 
done as many times more good to humanity; and 
they will continue their mission for generations to 
come. Keeping in mind the argument that the 
world is on the brink of damnation for want of 
leaders, who shall say whether Browning or Riley 
made the larger contribution toward staying its 
frightful course? Carlyle's "French Revolu- 
tion" and his *Trederic 11" and other works are 
no doubt great and decidedly unique productions ; 
and Carlyle was undoubtedly a man of wide in- 
tellectual influence; but the present generation 
finds delight, instruction, and satisfaction in such 
high class works as **The Dawn of Italian Inde- 
pendence" and "The Life and Times of Cavour" 
and other works by WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER, 
and in the productions of the two TREVELYANS, 
and in those of ROOSEVELT, and of many other 
contemporaries. And they serve not merely as a 
"supplement" but as a very satisfactory "substi- 
tute." 

[42] 



In the field of statesmanship: ASQUITH was 
great enough, with SIR EDWARD (now Viscount) 
GREY, in a great and sudden crisis, the great- 
est by far that ever confronted the British 
nation, to decide, quickly and rightly, the greatest 
question ever put before the nation, and to lead it 
promptly to the defense of honor, and at a time 
when less than great men would have falt- 
ered, which, thank God, they did not. LLOYD 
GEORGE is great enough, in times that try men's 
souls, to have and to deserve the support 
and praise and applause of a great part of the 
British people, and indeed, of the people of the 
world, and he is so great a leader that his pre- 
mature death would be deemed a calamity by 
the people of almost every country on the face 
of the globe. CLEMENCEAU : Does not he, "fill 
the bill," — to use a now classical expression? 
Does not he, with credit and honor, perform the 
great duties and meet the heavy responsibilities of 
the high position to which he was called by his 
countrymen? What is lacking to make that fiery 
old French patriot and leader eligible to the list? 
What are we to say, — or rather think, — of one 
who, at this time, in a public print, by a single 
word **superannuated," disposes of this represent- 
ative of FRANCE? Even a Cram vocabulary 
would be inadequate for the expression of our feel- 

[43] 



ings. But there come to mind words attributed 
to another great Frenchman: "Irreverent rib- 
bald! Beware then the falling ruins!" 

In the field of statesmanship at home: WIL- 
SON is a great leader, and there is no need of 
a qualifying "if" or "perhaps" or "to that extent." 
The whole world knows it, — except Dr. Cram. 

Roosevelt is a great leader, — for his many- 
sidedness; for his devotion to the interests of 
the masses; for his accomplishments in their be- 
half; for his fearlessness of all classes; for his 
boldness of utterance; for his literary productions 
and wide culture; for his unquestioned compet- 
ency as an executive; for leadership based on the 
comprehension by the hundreds of thousands of 
his followers of his force and dominance. TAFT 
is a great leader, — for broadguaged executive, 
administrative and judicial powers, proved in 
highly honorable participation in world work in 
the highest offices. ROOT is a great leader, — 
for modern diplomacy of a high order, utterly 
free from demagogy; for his keen and brilliant 
powers of analysis; for conspicuous and highly 
successful service to his country. HUGHES is 
a great leader, — for exceptional courage of con- 
viction; for high executive and judicial qualities; 
for the confidence which millions of Americans 

[44] 



have shown in him. LODGE is a great leader, 
— for his conspicuously able service in the Senate ; 
for common sense, and at the same time great in- 
tellectual attainments, which latter must not al- 
together be lost in that once august body. 

The Nemesis seems to put a ban on great 
leaders in mere business affairs, such as applied 
science, industrial organization, banking, econom- 
ic efficiency, and on great leaders in journalism, 
thus barring mention of such men as SIR WILLIAM 
RAMSAY, MAYO BROTHERS, GORGAS, EDISON, 
MARCONI, and WRIGHT, in science; HILL, WIL- 
LARD, GARY, ARMOUR, GOETHALS, GRANT 
SMITH, and others, in industrial organization and 
economic efficiency; MORGAN, STILLMAN, BAK- 
ER, WARBURG, VANDERLIP, FORGAN, REYNOLDS, 
MC ADOO and others, in banking and finance ; LY- 
MAN ABBOTT, HENRY WATTERSON, GEORGE 
HARVEY and HARRISON GRAY OTIS, in journal- 
ism. 

But men who at great personal pecuniary 
sacrifice, from purely patriotic motives or a sim- 
ple desire to go about "doing good," are showing 
conspicuous powers of leadership in public office 
or in great human causes and movements, many 
of them rendering world-wide service, making 
their names honored throughout Christendom, — 

[45] 



these are not in terms banned by The Nemesis, 
and a few may be mentioned. CHIEF JUSTICE 
WHITE is a great leader in judicial affairs, — proved 
by many years of conspicuously great service on 
the bench. SECRETARY LANE is a great leader, 
— for his courage and fairness as an Interstate 
Commerce Commissioner ; for his vision and fore- 
sight and common sense of an extraordinary kind 
in the conservation and development of natural re- 
sources ; for his modest leadership in many phases 
of Americanization, a **forward looking man" 
who has the respect and admiration of citizens 
generally, a man of presidential proportions. 
HOOVER is a great leader, — for his splendid 
world service; extraordinary administrative abil- 
ity; phenomenal tact in dealing with the masses, 
and other fine qualities ; another man of president- 
ial proportions, when the country wants a real 
administrator at its head. MOTT is a great lead- 
er, — for his lifetime of devotion to a great human- 
itarian cause, devotion coupled with industry, 
a high order of ability and admitted qual- 
ities of leadership, and with a soul and a charact- 
er that have touched the hearts and indelibly in- 
fluenced for good the destiny of hundreds of 
thousands of men in many parts of the world. 
We would not like to be charged with the task 

[46] 



of proving that any six of Dr. Cram*s immortal 
eighteen have, combined, done so much as John 
R. Mott to advance the cause of humanity 
throughout the world. DAVISON is a great 
leader, — for his splendid management of the 
greatest single humanitarian agency in times of 
war that the world has ever known ; for his vision, 
courage and confidence; for his dynamic person- 
ality; for his qualities of quiet domination. 
SCHWAB is a great leader, — for that rare com- 
bination of qualities that enable him to manage 
vast enterprises and to arouse great masses of 
men to their utmost endeavor, — a man who knows 
human nature, a man born to lead if ever there 
was one. CROWDER is a great leader, — for 
his masterful powers of organization, a striking 
example of the truth of the saying that the times 
produce the man ; and in this instance he was pro- 
duced without delay. Crowder has never been 
run over by the procession. GOMPERS is a 
great leader, — proved by his long retention of the 
position he now holds at the head of organized 
labor ; for none but a great leader could have such 
honor; proved by his freedom from dogmas, by 
his unalterable determination along lines which 
he believes to be for the good of his followers; 
proved by his patriotism, by his good sense, by 

[47] 



his rejection early in the war of the camouflaged 
German propaganda. The nation owes much 
to Samuel Gompers. 

It is not necessary for us to say that the men 
named are great leaders in the sense that Julius 
Caesar, Martin Luther, Cardinal Richelieu, Oli- 
ver Cromwell, George Washington and Abraham 
Lincoln were great leaders. Having in mind the 
Cram thesis that the world is going to per- 
dition, for want of great leaders, it is enough to 
say that they are playing as great a part in keep- 
ing the world right side up as was played by the 
"immortals" of the 1880-1905 period, — Karl 
Marx, William Morris, Darwin, Tourguenieff, 
Browning, Stevenson, Ruskin, Spencer, etc. 

Greatness in men is an indefinable thing. 
Times change and the standards of greatness 
change with the times. 



The world is not going to the demnition 
bow-wows. It is not the crack of doom that Dr. 
Cram hears. It is a fight for greater liberty. 
The fight is proving that in a democracy as well 
as in an autocracy, efficiency may be general. 

And in this period of ours, since that fateful 
year 1905, has not really great progress been 

[48] 



made?— in the protection of the health and Hves 
oMhe people,— in the prevention of industrial ac- 
cidents,— in the conservation of natural resource^ 
and the utihzation of the pubhc domain.— in 
the wise restriction of immigration and the as- 
similation of the foreign element in our midst,— 
m the regulation for the common good of big bus- 
mess, — in halting the concentration in a few of 
vast powers over pubhc enterprises,— in making 
wealth the servant, not the master of the people, 
— m giving to labor priority and independence of 
capital, while still protecting the rights of the lat- 
ter—and in the cultivation of a wonderful spirit 
of giving, by high and by low, by rich and by 
poor, to great humanitarian causes. 

What was done in that great leadership per- 
lod of 1880-1905, that surpasses or even equals 
the subsequent achievements, in ameliorating the 
conditions of the peop/e,— in bringing us nearer 
to the aims of democracy "in its protean forms," 
abolition of privilege, equal opportunity for all 
and utilization of ability? 

The world is now being made safe for dem- 
ocracy. When that job is done, democracy itself 
will have attention. If it is not already safe for 
the world, it will be made so. In that task there 
will be working the millions of our citizens who 

[49] 



have served at the front, — pure "Americans,** 
hyphenates, and all those ''mongrels'* v^e have 
heard about, — regenerated by the war, — whose 
influence in their counties, their states, their na- 
tion, yes, even in international affairs, will be well 
nigh controlling, — from whom our executives and 
legislators and judges for the next fifty years will 
be chosen, — whose influence will be for good. 
They will have more than the narrow view of 
former days; they will know better what consti- 
tutes a great man; they will far more easily de- 
tect the counterfeit; they will no longer be so 
much deceived by "the specious demagogue, the 
unscrupulous master of effrontery*' of which there 
are far too many, we admit. Those returning men 
will be acute critics of municipal, state and nation- 
al conditions. They will have learned discip- 
line and efficiency. They will have a new and 
broader view of life, a greater appreciation of 
their fellow-citizens of all nationalities, types and 
classes. They will know, as they never knew 
before, that all classes of people, — the rich as 
well as the poor, the "intellectuals" and the "un- 
couth flotsam," the native born and the welcom- 
ed from foreign lands, — have hearts in the right 
place, have rights to be respected and preserved, 
and their parts to play in the regeneration of the 
world, toward the accomplishment of which the 

[50] 



war has done so much. No longer will the rat- 
ing by Dun or Bradstreet, nor the life history 
found in **Who's Who", nor the social Blue 
Book, nor position in business, nor intellectual' 
ffij, — be considered the important thing. It will 
be effective personal service in the great cause 
of humanity, in high or low places, under the 
dictates of conscience and duty, free from sel- 
fish motives. 

A few days after the assassination of Lincoln, 
at a public meeting in Concord, Emerson closed 
a great address with these words: 

**The ancients believed in a serene and beauti- 
ful Genius which ruled in the affairs of nations; 
which, with a slow but stern justice, carried for- 
ward the fortunes of certain chosen houses, weed- 
ing out single offenders or offending families, and 
securing at last the firm prosperity of the favorites 
of Heaven. It was too narrow a view of the 
Eternal Nemesis. There is a serene Providence 
which rules the fate of nations, which makes lit- 
tle account of time, little of one generation or race, 
makes no account of disasters, conquers alike by 
what is called defeat or by what is called victory, 
thrusts aside enemy and obstruction, crushes every- 
thing immoral as inhuman, and obtains the ultimate 
triumph of the best race by the sacrifice of every- 

[51] 



thing which resists the moral laws of the world. 
It makes its own instruments, creates the man for 
the time, trains him in poverty, inspires his genius, 
and arms him for the task. It has given every race 
its own talent, and ordains that only that race 
which combines perfectly with the virtues of all, 
shall endure.'* 

Mediocrity is a relative and therefore chang- 
ing term. There are now and always will be 
many mediocrities. They are the bone and 
sinew of every land. Perhaps they are not 
lead so much by the intellectual nobility as 
might be thought. Not impossibly, the intellect- 
ual nobility are in some lines the followers. So 
far as mediocrities need leadership, they have it, 
and it "matches in power the exigency of the de- 
mand." 

The Nemesis of Mediocrity is a mere figment 
of the brain. He who entertains the idea of its 
existence needs a change of environment, a pro- 
longed one, a chance of thought, a complete one. 
If he be not too far advanced in the folly, he may 
yet live it down.^^ 

"A friend to whom this manuscript was shown ex- 
pressed the opinion that too much powder has been used 
in dealing with The Nemesis When asked for an ex- 

[52] 



» 



The Eternal Nemesis is now engaged in the 
chastisement of nations which have resisted the 
moral laws of the world. The times have created 
the man for every part of the task. The man 
has been mspired and armed. The chastisement 
IS to be thorough. 



planation, he added that The Nemesis had caused about 
as big a ripple as was caused by Mr. Pickwick's "Ob- 
servations on the Theory of Tittlebats." An unkind 
comparison, say we. 



[53] 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 

imi 

e 006 150 212 9 



/■ 



